It’s not really clear to me that negative utilitarians and people with person-affecting views need to disagree with the quoted passage as stated. These views focus primarily on the suffering aspect of well-being, and nearly all of the possible suffering is found in the astronomical numbers of people who could populate the far future.
To elaborate, in my dissertation, I assume—like most people would—that a future where humans have great influence would be a good thing. But I don’t argue for that and some people might disagree. If that’s the only thing you disagree with me about, it seems you actually still end up accepting my conclusion that what matters most is making humanity’s long-term future development go as well as possible. It’s just that you end up focusing on different aspects of making the long-term future development go as well as possible.
Hi Nick, thanks! I do indeed fully agree with your general conclusion that what matters most is making our long-term development go as well as possible. (I had something more specific in mind when speaking of “Bostrom’s and Beckstead’s conclusions” here, sorry about the confusion.) In fact, I consider your general conclusion very obvious. :) (What’s difficult is the empirical question of how to best affect the far future.) The obviousness of your conclusion doesn’t imply that your dissertation wasn’t super-important, of course—most people seem to disagree with the conclusion. Unfortunately and sadly, though, the utility of talking about (affecting) the far future is a tricky issue too, given fundamental disagreements in population ethics.
I don’t know that the “like most people would” parenthesis is true. (A “good thing” maybe, but a morally urgent thing to bring about, if the counterfactual isn’t existence with less well-being, but non-existence?) I’d like to see some solid empirical data here. I think some people are in the process of collecting it.
Do you not argue for that at all? I thought you were going in the direction of establishing an axiological and deontic parallelism between the “wretched child” and the “happy child”.
The quoted passage (“all potential value is found in [the existence of] the well-being of the astronomical numbers of people who could populate the far future”) strongly suggests a classical total population ethics, which is rejected by negative utilitarianism and person-affecting views. And the “therefore” suggests that the crucial issue here is time preference, which is a popular and incorrect perception.
Do you not argue for that at all? I thought you were going in the direction of establishing an axiological and deontic parallelism between the “wretched child” and the “happy child”.
I do some of that in chapter 4. I don’t engage with speculative arguments that the future will be bad (e.g. the dystopian scenarios that negative utilitarians like to discuss) or make my case by appealing to positive trends of the sort discussed by Pinker in Better Angels. Carl Shulman and I are putting together some thoughts on some of these issues at the moment.
The quoted passage (“all potential value is found in [the existence of] the well-being of the astronomical numbers of people who could populate the far future”) strongly suggests a classical total population ethics, which is rejected by negative utilitarianism and person-affecting views. And the “therefore” suggests that the crucial issue here is time preference, which is a popular and incorrect perception.
Maybe so. I think the key is how you interpret the word “value.” If you interpret as “only positive value” then negative utilitarians disagree but only because they think there isn’t any possible positive value. If you interpret it as “positive or negative value” I think they should agree for pretty straightforward reasons.
It’s not really clear to me that negative utilitarians and people with person-affecting views need to disagree with the quoted passage as stated. These views focus primarily on the suffering aspect of well-being, and nearly all of the possible suffering is found in the astronomical numbers of people who could populate the far future.
To elaborate, in my dissertation, I assume—like most people would—that a future where humans have great influence would be a good thing. But I don’t argue for that and some people might disagree. If that’s the only thing you disagree with me about, it seems you actually still end up accepting my conclusion that what matters most is making humanity’s long-term future development go as well as possible. It’s just that you end up focusing on different aspects of making the long-term future development go as well as possible.
Hi Nick, thanks! I do indeed fully agree with your general conclusion that what matters most is making our long-term development go as well as possible. (I had something more specific in mind when speaking of “Bostrom’s and Beckstead’s conclusions” here, sorry about the confusion.) In fact, I consider your general conclusion very obvious. :) (What’s difficult is the empirical question of how to best affect the far future.) The obviousness of your conclusion doesn’t imply that your dissertation wasn’t super-important, of course—most people seem to disagree with the conclusion. Unfortunately and sadly, though, the utility of talking about (affecting) the far future is a tricky issue too, given fundamental disagreements in population ethics.
I don’t know that the “like most people would” parenthesis is true. (A “good thing” maybe, but a morally urgent thing to bring about, if the counterfactual isn’t existence with less well-being, but non-existence?) I’d like to see some solid empirical data here. I think some people are in the process of collecting it.
Do you not argue for that at all? I thought you were going in the direction of establishing an axiological and deontic parallelism between the “wretched child” and the “happy child”.
The quoted passage (“all potential value is found in [the existence of] the well-being of the astronomical numbers of people who could populate the far future”) strongly suggests a classical total population ethics, which is rejected by negative utilitarianism and person-affecting views. And the “therefore” suggests that the crucial issue here is time preference, which is a popular and incorrect perception.
I do some of that in chapter 4. I don’t engage with speculative arguments that the future will be bad (e.g. the dystopian scenarios that negative utilitarians like to discuss) or make my case by appealing to positive trends of the sort discussed by Pinker in Better Angels. Carl Shulman and I are putting together some thoughts on some of these issues at the moment.
Maybe so. I think the key is how you interpret the word “value.” If you interpret as “only positive value” then negative utilitarians disagree but only because they think there isn’t any possible positive value. If you interpret it as “positive or negative value” I think they should agree for pretty straightforward reasons.